I care about my 7 y.o stepson, but his behavior worries me. He’s always attached to me and follows me everywhere. Once, he even faked fainting so I’d miss the work. One night, as I got ready for bed, I opened the shower curtain and froze as I saw him curled up in the tub, fully dressed, staring up at me like he’d been waiting there.

My heart nearly jumped out of my chest. I dropped my towel and just stood there, stunned.

“Mateo, what are you doing?” I asked, trying to stay calm, even though my insides were flipping.

He didn’t answer at first. He just looked up at me with those wide, dark eyes like I’d caught him stealing something. Then he whispered, “I didn’t want to be alone.”

I exhaled hard, grabbed a towel off the rack, and gently pulled him up and out of the tub. He wasn’t wet. He hadn’t turned the water on or anything. He’d just climbed in there like it was a hiding spot.

“You know you can’t just sneak around like that,” I said, crouching to his level. “You scared me.”

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, head down. “I thought you were leaving.”

“Leaving where?”

He just shrugged.

I didn’t push. I tucked him into bed again and sat on the edge until he dozed off, but my mind kept racing. This wasn’t the first time. Mateo had been clingy since the day his dad and I got married. But it had been getting worse—creeping into something obsessive.

He started sleeping outside our bedroom door, making excuses not to go to school, crying if I so much as ran errands without him. At first, I thought it was sweet, maybe even flattering, how he’d bonded with me. His dad, Dario, said he was just going through a phase. But I could feel it in my gut—this was not normal.

The next morning, I called in sick and stayed home. I told Dario I was just tired, which wasn’t a lie, but really I just wanted to observe. Watch how Mateo acted when I wasn’t in a rush.

By noon, he hadn’t left my side. He even followed me to the bathroom and waited outside the door. I tried a little experiment and told him I was going to the mailbox. He immediately panicked.

“Wait—can I come? Please?” he said, nearly breathless.

“It’ll take two seconds,” I said gently.

His eyes welled up, and he whispered, “What if you don’t come back?”

That’s when I knew something was seriously off.

That night, I asked Dario if anything happened before we got married. Anything traumatic? He swore no. “Mateo’s always been sensitive, sure, but this level of anxiety? It’s new,” he said.

The more I thought about it, the more one person kept coming to mind: Mateo’s biological mom, Xiomara.

Xiomara and I had never been close. She tolerated me, and I tolerated her. We had a civil co-parenting arrangement—at least on paper. But I always got the sense she didn’t like me being in Mateo’s life. Not because I was cruel or cold—I’d done everything to earn that kid’s trust. But I think it gnawed at her to see him growing attached to someone else.

I didn’t want to jump to conclusions. But I started documenting things—times Mateo clung to me, odd phrases he’d say like, “I’ll be good, don’t send me away.” Stuff no 7-year-old should be worried about.

Then, one weekend when he came back from Xiomara’s, I found a crumpled drawing in his backpack. It was a stick figure family—me, Dario, and him. Only I had an X drawn across my face. In big shaky letters, the words “she’s fake” were written above it.

I sat down with him after dinner and asked, gently, what that meant.

He got quiet. Fidgety. “Mom says you won’t stay. You’re not really my family.”

There it was. My chest tightened, but I kept my voice steady.

“Mateo, do you believe that?”

He paused. Then: “I don’t know.”

I didn’t tell Dario right away. Not because I was hiding it—but because I needed more. More proof. More than just a kid repeating a sentence he might’ve misheard. I scheduled a session with the school counselor and asked for her thoughts.

After one meeting, she called me and said, “This goes deeper than you think. He’s internalized some real fear of abandonment.”

I asked if she thought it was coming from home. She hesitated, then said, “You might want to have a serious conversation with his biological mother.”

That night, I finally told Dario everything. The drawing, the phrases, the counselor’s take. He looked stunned. Hurt, even.

“We agreed we’d never badmouth each other in front of him,” he muttered. “That was always our rule.”

“Maybe she didn’t say it directly,” I offered. “Kids can pick up on things.”

He nodded slowly. “Or maybe she said it directly and hoped he’d repeat it.”

We agreed to talk to her together, calmly, like adults. That… did not happen.

When we confronted Xiomara the next day, she flew off the handle.

“Oh, so now I’m the villain?” she snapped. “He’s a child! You’re putting words in his mouth!”

“He’s terrified I’ll leave him!” I said. “He hid in the bathtub last week just to make sure I didn’t disappear.”

Xiomara scoffed. “You married his father a year ago. Kids don’t forget that fast. He barely knows you.”

“But he’s trying to,” I said. “And you’re making it harder.”

She threw up her hands. “You’re just jealous he loves me more.”

That’s when Dario stepped in. “This isn’t about who he loves more. It’s about stability. If you’re poisoning him against my wife, we have a serious problem.”

She didn’t deny it. Just muttered something about “telling him the truth.”

After that, we filed for a formal modification in the custody agreement. It wasn’t to take Mateo away from her—but to mandate counseling and stricter boundaries about co-parenting communication.

But here’s where things got complicated: Mateo overheard part of our conversation with the lawyer.

That night, he asked me straight up, “Are you going to take me away from my mom?”

I knelt beside his bed and said, “No, baby. We’re just trying to help everyone get along better.”

“But she said you don’t want me to love her.”

I felt like I’d been punched in the chest. All I could say was, “You’re allowed to love all the people in your life.”

He blinked at me, confused. Then quietly said, “She cries when I say I had fun with you.”

That was the breaking point. I realized we weren’t just dealing with jealousy—we were dealing with emotional manipulation.

The next few months were rough. Custody mediators. Child therapists. Court-mandated sessions. Mateo was shuffled around and confused, and I won’t lie—it almost tore us apart.

But then something changed.

One afternoon, while I was helping him with his math homework, he looked up and said, “You’re not going to leave, are you? Even if I mess up sometimes?”

I set the pencil down and took his hand. “I’m not going anywhere.”

He nodded, like he was letting out a breath he’d been holding for years.

Slowly, the anxiety started to ease. The hiding stopped. The fake fainting stopped. He started inviting friends over. He smiled more. Laughed louder. Even told me a joke once that made me spit water across the kitchen.

It wasn’t perfect. Co-parenting never is. Xiomara kept her distance after the court sessions. But eventually, she seemed to come around in her own way. I heard from one of the therapists that she was working through some issues herself—jealousy, resentment, fears about being replaced.

I don’t hate her for it. Not anymore.

I think she was scared. Scared her son would love me too much. Scared she’d lose her place. And in trying to protect herself, she hurt the very person she loved the most.

The real twist came last spring, when Mateo had to do a school project on “family.”

He stood up in front of the class and held up a paper cut-out of a house.

“This is my family,” he said. “My mom, my dad, and my stepmom. My stepmom is like the glue. She keeps the peace.”

I cried the entire drive home. He didn’t even know I was there. His teacher had invited parents quietly so the kids wouldn’t get nervous. I watched him speak those words without prompting, without fear.

And in that moment, I felt like maybe—just maybe—I had done something right.

These days, Mateo’s a whole new kid. Still sensitive, still thoughtful, but no longer scared. He spends weekends with both homes comfortably. And every once in a while, when we’re watching a movie or driving somewhere, he’ll reach over and squeeze my hand for no reason.

And I squeeze back.

Here’s what I’ve learned: Sometimes, kids don’t know how to say “I’m scared.” So they act out. Cling. Panic. Push buttons. But underneath all that mess is just a heart that wants to feel safe.

I’m not perfect. Neither is Dario. Or Xiomara. But we’re trying.

If you’re in a blended family—be patient. Be honest. And never, ever use a child as a pawn.

They see more than we think. And they carry it longer than we know.

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